McCain's Tax Argument
May Be Too Late to Help

With exactly two weeks until Election Day, the only question that really matters in the presidential contest is the simplest one: Is there any way Sen. John McCain can catch up?

On the surface, it doesn't look promising for the Republican ticket. Sen. Barack Obama's lead in national polls is significant, and it is matched by leads in a whole series of battleground states.

Given that backdrop, Sen. McCain has to rely at this point on two forces: history and hope.

History is important because it suggests that presidential races usually tighten in the final two weeks. Hope, in turn, arises in the McCain campaign because it thinks it finally has found a tax argument that is working in the contest's final stage.

Let's look first at history. A comparison of mid-October polling numbers with final election results shows that, in four of the past five presidential elections, the outcome ended up being closer than polling a few weeks out suggested.

The most significant recent exception came in 1980, when a tight race turned into a rout as voters rushed toward Ronald Reagan in the campaign's final weekend.

But a narrowing is more the norm, sometimes by a small amount, sometimes more dramatically. In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton was ahead by 17 percentage points in mid-October, and he ended up beating Sen. Robert Dole by a little more than eight points. So don't be surprised if you see margins narrowing in the remaining two weeks.

Tightening isn't the same as turning a race around, of course. If a more drastic change is to be seen this time, it will be because something occurs to change today's dynamics.

ENLARGE

Sen. John McCain steps off of his campaign airplane on his way to a rally in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday.
Getty Images

An international crisis might do that. But such events and their consequences are unpredictable by definition and hardly something the McCain campaign can wait for. Instead, Sen. McCain's hope has to be that the same giant force that has been moving the campaign in his Democratic rival's favor -- the economy -- can somehow be used to create an opening.

To see why that's the case, consider the arc of this race. It was very close until the confidence-shattering crisis in the financial markets struck in mid-September. That worked to the benefit of Sen. Obama's argument that something is fundamentally unsound about current economic policies, and it just as quickly undercut Sen. McCain's strength on national security.

At that point, the McCain campaign began to see an erosion of support in two key constituencies: middle- and upper-class white men -- members of the "investor class" deeply shaken by the market plunge -- and senior citizens, unnerved by the erosion of their nest eggs.

Now, what the McCain camp most needs is market calm until Election Day, to ease jittery nerves and allow such constituencies to recall the reasons they leaned toward Sen. McCain in the first place: his experience and his profile as a potential commander in chief.

Market calm, then, is necessary -- and with Monday's stock-market rally may be within reach -- but it probably isn't sufficient. What the McCain camp also needs is an argument that can move other voters. That, McCain advisers hope, is the tax argument.

Here's where the now-famous Joe the Plumber comes in. Virtually everyone agrees that Sen. Obama has had the better of the campaign debate over taxes, by virtue of his simple argument that he is offering a middle-class tax cut for 95% of American families with his proposal for a $1,000 tax break for households earning less than $250,000 a year.

The McCain campaign has countered, largely without breaking through, that the Obama tax cut is really a tax credit that amounts to a redistribution of income, because it will tax some households more so that others can be taxed less -- including millions of households that don't owe federal income taxes but would get a tax-credit check anyway.

When Joe the Plumber entered the scene, he brought this argument to life, contending that his taxes might go up if he bought his business, and complaining that he isn't interested in seeing his taxes being used in an effort to "spread the wealth" around America.

That has helped the McCain campaign frame the closing argument it wants to make. "You'll see a relentless focus by us on this tax issue under the umbrella of 'spread the wealth,'" says Steve Schmidt, the campaign's chief strategist. "Hearing an ultraliberal candidate say that sends a chill down people's spines."

Other uncertainties remain, including the rate at which young voters will actually turn out to vote for Sen. Obama, and the effectiveness of Republicans' get-out-the-vote machine, which was powerful four years ago.

Will any or all of those factors be enough for Sen. McCain? It's still a long shot. He has to hope that voters now leaning toward Sen. Obama get cold feet, and the tax argument may help there.

At the same time, though, that prospect was countered over the weekend with the endorsement of Sen. Obama by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican who served under President George W. Bush. Gen. Powell is a reassuring figure who represents, in the words of former Reagan White House chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein, "the Good Housekeeping seal of approval."

While the McCain campaign hopes to induce cold feet, Gen. Powell represents a useful foot-warmer for Team Obama.

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